Remnant Tails

Gloom's Doom

I ran and ran, never knowing where I was going or where I was heading to.

It was awful to think of what that woman must be thinking right now. Her son had gone missing under both our noses, and I, her demon, was right at the scene of the crime.

Her eyes—oh, how they haunted me—bore witness to that. And while I was innocent of the crime, I knew what was responsible.

Now I was angry with that stupid dog.

If he hadn't stepped on my tail earlier the gloom would have had me and not that boy. Who knows what difference that would've made?

The entire situation swallowed me whole.

"Leave me alone! Let go, Julia!" A familiar voice managed to halt me. I stopped and listened, trying to find the source.

"Clean it up, pooper scooper," I heard a girl badger.

I hesitated before I turned left at the laughter.

"Knock it off! Let Go!" Dory's strangled voice crushed me.

I dashed left and didn't stop.

I heard the cruel voice of a young tormentor.

"Eheh! Make her eat it, Mila."

"I'm not going near that stuff, guys. Last time I got dirty my Mom gave it to me," a boy whined.

"Shut up, Joseph!" the first girl snapped. "I said, 'Clean it up, pooper scooper,' or I'll make you eat it!"

"I'm not a pooper-scooper!" Dory resisted.

Hold on Dory!

I turned again, and in the distance, I made out a group of seven or eight children grouped together. It was nothing abnormal. Kids gathered together like so all the time. But these kids were all gathered around Dory as two other children held her, and a girl, the ringleader, led them on.

The girl pointed at Dory.

"Yes, you are! That's what my father says and he works for the Prince. Are you calling my father a liar! I'd expect no less from a pooper-scooper! He can't lie! Put her face in it to teach her a lesson."

I was still too far away.

Dory struggled against a huge girl with pillows for arms and a tight hat squeezed on her head, and a neat little boy with shiny slicked back hair, big ears, with a pressed shirt and slacks. They bent her to her knees near a few coats, but something on the ground made her fight against them fiercely.

"Let me go!" she screamed again.

A girl with straight blond hair and ice blue eyes that chilled me from here bent her pointy nose down close to Dory's.

"No one calls my father a liar," she said coldly. "That peasant who gave you life got crap all over Father's shoes and put him in poor favor with the Prince. Father let him keep his job so you should be grateful. Instead, you butt me in the head, so as punishment you have to eat this poop or I'm gonna tell Father and you and that goat in that hovel will be eating out of the trash!"

Dory growled at her.

"Everybody knows that your father kisses horse butt! That's why he stinks and that's why the Prince doesn't like him! You're a stub, Mila Stokes!"

"You are a pooper-scooper! It's your job to get rid of poop! Make her eat it, guys!" Mila barked.

All the other kids watched as the two kids forced Dory down in front of a huge pile of animal waste.